White Oak is 0-10 against Jacksonville since January of 2020 but they'll have a chance to close the gap a little bit on Monday. The White Oak Vikings will be playing in front of their home fans against the Jacksonville Cardinals at 4:30 p.m. The teams are rolling into the game with opposing streaks: White Oak has struggled recently with six losses in a row, while Jacksonville will arrive with four straight wins.
White Oak suffered their closest defeat yet this season on Friday. They fell just short of West Carteret by a score of 55-52. White Oak has struggled against West Carteret recently, as their contest on Friday was their seventh consecutive lost matchup.
Despite the defeat, White Oak got a solid performance out of Denniyah Tanner, who scored 25 points along with six rebounds and six steals. As a matter of fact, that's the most points Tanner has scored all season. Kylie Stephens was another key contributor, scoring eight points along with three steals.
Even though they lost, White Oak were working as a unit and finished the game with 14 assists. That's the most assists they've managed all season.
Meanwhile, Jacksonville stacked a ninth blowout win onto their ever-increasing hoard last Thursday. They claimed a resounding 64-25 win over North Brunswick on the road. Given Jacksonville's advantage in MaxPreps' North Carolina basketball rankings (they are ranked 101st, while North Brunswick is ranked 280th), the result wasn't entirely unexpected.
Kelize Velez-Galan was her usual excellent self, scoring 20 points along with nine rebounds and five steals. She hasn't dropped below 15points for four straight games. Another player making a difference was Azumi Oka, who scored ten points along with five assists and four steals.
White Oak bumped their record down to 1-8 with that loss, which was their fourth straight at home. As for Jacksonville, they are on a roll lately: they've won seven of their last eight contests, which provided a nice bump to their 9-2 record this season.
This contest is one where the number of possessions is likely to be a big factor: White Oak have been smashing the glass this season, having only averaged 25 rebounds per game. However, it's not like Jacksonville struggles in that department as they've been averaging only 30.2 rebounds per game. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
White Oak took a serious blow against Jacksonville in their previous matchup back in December of 2023, falling 62-34. A big factor in that loss was the dominant performance of Velez-Galan, who dropped a double-double on 34 points and ten rebounds. Now that White Oak knows the damage she can cause, will they be able to stop her this time? Check MaxPreps.com after the match to find out.
